


September's End

by NarrativeInformative



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Alternate Universe - Future, Body Horror, Minor Character Death, Multi, Murder, Other Additional Tags to Be Added
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-04-03
Updated: 2015-08-18
Packaged: 2018-03-20 22:38:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 7
Words: 21,608
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3667815
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NarrativeInformative/pseuds/NarrativeInformative
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Time has changed Gravity Falls. Seventeen years after that summer in Gravity Falls, Agent Mabel Pines has a new case to solve. A series of murders begins to spread across the town like wildfire and brings her back to where mystery first began, but not all mysteries end with answers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue: Cold Open

There was a chill in the air that made his hip ache that morning, the sky was clear but rain had to be on its way. He had broken that hip earlier in the year after falling out of a tree, and he was lucky enough to have just broken just that. It was a constant reminder of age that limited his body. He could deal with the white hairs peppering his hair and the few wrinkles, but Dan had a house to keep warm and a business to keep going. Maybe not as many feet running around, and maybe a little too quiet, with everyone working or in college now, but it was a home and he was going to keep it warm and comfortable for his kids to prop up their feet when they did come home.

A piece of plastic was tied securely to a strong branch, tugged into a knot once, then twice, then he moved along. The short chitter of a few squirrels made him glance over his shoulder at a nearby tree. They stared at him with big dark eyes, tails thrashing about with their claws dug into their home. “I got it.” He grumbled, moving along with a quicker step.

Dan knew he had to be careful of which trees he cut and which to leave. Gravity Falls didn’t need any more clear cutting, and he wasn’t stupid enough to cut down one the local gnomes had picked for hibernating in that year. He didn’t need them or the squirrels infesting his woodpile again.

The sound died down with the distance Dan had put between himself and the animals until there was the faint chirp of birds again. No warning calls, just gentle silence.

He blinked at the sky and the light starting to shine through the needles. The sun must have just peaked over the cliffs. The morning light always gave the redwoods a gentle glow, haloing them in soft yellow. Wendy was the only one who enjoyed morning cuttings.

She would run ahead, singling out trees that she would scramble up at incredible speeds, always outrunning him. A tightness coiled around his heart, pushing out against his ribs. He didn’t have the heart to stop her from leaving, he couldn’t have.

Dan had to push these thoughts out of his mind. Trees, he had to mark out trees for next season. He was almost positive there was one he marked out earlier. One more tree before the first frost would come

“Hello? Little help here?” He turned his gaze towards a few of the trees. For a heartbeat the wood went silent, then alive again with the sounds of birdcalls and a nearby woodpecker. Of course there was nothing.

His hand found the side of a tree, resting against it, feeling for anything beneath the thick layer of bark and tapping a few times on it. No one home, but it was shorter than the other trees, one that had sprouted and grew maybe a few decades ago. Too young to cut, and by the time it would be old enough Dan wouldn’t be able to cut his own lumber anymore.

A snort escaped his nose as the first morning breeze passed through the forest and moved something out of the corner of his eye. A flash of color. Bingo.

“There you are you hunk of wood.” Around a low hanging branch there was a bright orange strip of thin plastic. It was tall, but not the tallest tree. Uninhabited, just the right age, and clustered a little too close to a few other saplings trying to grow around it.

He unfurled the leather strap around his arm as he approached the tree and picked and looked at the orange scrap of plastic. It was speckled with dirt, rusty red and crusted to the plastic. Dan’s mouth pulled into a thin line as his calloused fingers rubbed away the grit.

Something was wrong, dirt didn’t leave red stains like that. Clay maybe? He let out an exhale with another breeze passing by.

There was a slight movement out of the corner of his eye, a flash of something bright, too bright for the shadows. Not the red of a gnome hat or the curious eyes of a Hide-Behind. Nothing but the wind and the gentle sound of rustling fabric.

Around the other side of the tree, hanging from a branch several feet above his head was a ghost. Not an actual one, but a prop. A simple white sheet thrown over a bundle and a rope tied around the top.

“Damn kids, it isn’t even October, and Summerween was months ago.” Dan reached up, trying to at least snag the rope and the prop swung against him.

For a moment, a second less than a heartbeat, Dan felt the world shift into slow motion and freeze at the point when the prop swung out the farthest, swaying towards the path Dan had walked through.

A pair of sneakers peaked out form the bottom of the sheet.

Air escaped in lungs all at once and turning into a strange gulp as he tried to take in air all at once. His body moved without his mind, finally grasping the thick rope with one of his hands. Threads scratched his palms, cutting into his sweating palms. He was shaking.

Dan pulled hard against the rope, his other hand grasping and pulling with his weight. The branch groaned, making the white sheet sway and the weight beneath is wave back and forth in jerking movements. He could feel the pain of acid low in his throat.

All at once, the branch gave a deep heaving groan and snapped, sending Dan flying on his back, hitting hard against the ground. Old twigs from fallen trees scratched his back and rubbed against the bumps of his spine through the layers of his jacket and shirt. The sheet ghost from the tree fell and brushed against his leg, the cloth fluttering for a moment before settling over a still form.

His back ached, but it was a pain Dan couldn’t feel over the harsh pulse of blood pounding in his ears until it rattled his skull. He scrambled to his knees. “Please be okay, please be okay.” It was a mantra he muttered with what little breath he had in his lungs. He pulled at the knot of the rope, tied just like a noose, and choked on his breath. There was a thick red stain under where the rope was tied around the neck of the ghost, the same color of aged rust.

“No, no, no,” over and over, he spoke, the ragged whisper becoming more and more hysteric and finally, finally, he pulled the sheet away from the body.

A flash of blonde hair, glazed brown eyes, and a long slice through the neck, spine and muscle just barely keeping their head to the body.

Dan had to turn away, just fast enough to keep himself from vomiting on the body. He knew who it was, and the acidic taste of bile in Dan’s mouth was accompanied by salted tears.

Help, he had to find help. He stood on shaking legs, almost falling a few times, trembling like a fawn, and he hated himself for it. Dan tried not to look at the body of one of Wendy’s old friends, and ran, his throat raw but the power of his lungs screaming for help as he ran in the direction of the closest inhabited place in Gravity Falls. The sun had risen over the cliffs, but there was the smell of rain in the air.


	2. How Long Has It Been?

A few more boxes on the paper filled with ink, a few checks, a signature, and the woman slid the document to the side, only for another five more to appear. Just looking at the pile made her hand ache even more. She hissed as she worked out another cramp in her hand, her index going over the bright pink and polka-dotted nail polish on her nails. Groan, pick up the pen, and sign again.

Another woman, curly haired and broad shouldered walked in with another pile of papers. Mabel groaned at her, and all the other woman could do was sigh back. “Sorry Mabel, but you know if the work-load is bad today, it’ll be slower tomorrow.”

Mabel looked up at the other woman standing in front of her desk, the smile on her coworkers face was a sort of hopeless rosiness. The kind when you told yourself things were going to be better later when you knew the next day was going to be filled with follow-up reports. “I can’t feel my hands anymore, Marissa. My hand is going to cut itself off my wrist!”

“Don’t bleed all over the carpets.”

“Oh c’mon, if you do my paperwork I’ll clean your car or something. I’ll take you to that Italian restaurant that makes it’s own gelato.”

For a moment, Mabel thought that she would take the bait, but Marissa’s lips thinned and she pointed to her own office down the hall. “If case you didn’t notice, I have my own mountain of shit to pile through.”

“Language, missy-Marissa, this is a professional environment.”

“Uh-huh, sure.” Before she left, Marissa flicked the bobble-head Stan that Mabel snagged from the Mystery Shack years ago before walking out of the office, closing the door behind her.

Mabel sighed, steadying the figure, then tapping it once and watched it take on a gentle rhythmic wobble. Her fingers found the beat and tapped it out on the table and she couldn’t help but stare blankly at the cheap plastic figure. Insurance fraud was so boring, nothing really new in San Francisco. Go undercover, give a pseudo name and false information, catch the act, and book them, clean-cut and too easy for her. Sometimes she wondered if it was simple skill or just her great uncle haunting her from beyond the grave and giving her tips.

Though if he really was a ghost he wouldn’t bother with the Federal Bureau other than to spite prospecting agents by putting soap in their coffee. Stan’s ghost would probably spend time picking the pockets of unsuspecting tourists to this day.

A laugh bubbled up from her chest. It wouldn’t have surprised her if that was the case. A few days after his funeral she had stayed at the Mystery Shack with Dipper for a few days, almost waiting for some breeze in the house to mess up her hair or a distant echoing voice telling Dipper to chop new wood.

Oh fuck, Dipper. “Oh no. No, no, nope.” Shit, when was the last time she called her brother?

Mabel practically scrambled for her cellphone, going through her call history. One missed call from Dipper, three days ago. Missed call ten days ago. Missed call eighteen days ago. When she finally did see a little green arrow next to his name she groaned and pressed her head into her desk. Three weeks. When did three weeks pass by? Mabel had been swamped with work, and did have her undercover mission, but three weeks? She always called Dipper once a week to catch up. This wasn’t even her worst record, coming in at a massive ten weeks of not even calling her brother. Mabel stared at her phone, her mouth forming a thin line. She should at least send a text.

“Pines?” The phone almost went flying out of her hand, caught at the last minute on reflex and placed in her lap with a forced smile pointed at the door. That smile fell off her face at the man walking into her office, a face with a dark complexion and salt and pepper hair that made her snap to attention. “May I have a word?”

“Of course, sir.” Her back went taut; shoulders squared and she took in his body language. Agent Garcia, her boss, shut the door, quiet, not to draw attention. His eyes didn’t focus on her immediately, took in the room first, the paperwork, then down to the manila folder tucked under his arm as he approached her desk. Mabel noted all of this. Something was wrong.

“You’re not in trouble.”

“I know, sir.”

A smile crossed his face, just a small tick, not so much relief as much as a knowing expression. “Right.” He stopped in front of her desk, cleared his throat, and finally looked her in the eye. “You’re familiar with Gravity Falls, correct?”

Gravity Falls. She gave a slow nod, trying hard to keep her face neutral. “Yes sir, I spent several summers there.”

“You familiar with the townsfolk?”

“It’s been a few years, but yes.”

“And the other,” he glanced to the door, a short swallow making his Adam’s apple bob once, “anomalies of the town?”

“I was in Gravity Falls during the summer of 2012. My great uncle was Stanford Pines, I’m sure you are aware of that.”

Garcia nodded, the caution he had approached her with replaced by evaluation. “Would your personal relations with the town color your investigative skills?”

“Sir.” Mabel stood, and tried not to flinch at the sound her phone made against the floor. “May I ask why you are inquiring about Gravity Falls? This is California, not Oregon.”

“I am aware of that.” The folder almost slipped from under his arm, he cleared his throat. “It’s been requested that we send someone who has been around Gravity Falls before. Agent Powers retired several years ago, and Agent Trigger was adamant not to go for some reason.”

A smile almost came to her lips, but not quite. “And what exactly is being investigated?”

“A murder.”

The words slid through her ears and reformed as a thick lump in her throat she had to swallow down. Names went through her head at the speed of her accelerated pulse. It took her a moment to blink and finally find her voice. “Who?”

“Mabel Pines,” Garcia spoke with a sharp tone that brought Mabel back to her head. “Are you positive you can keep a level head? You have a personal history with this town.”

“With due respect sir, that personal history is the biggest asset for this case. You wouldn’t have approached me otherwise, would you?”

Her boss stared for a moment longer, but Mabel didn’t dare look away. Garcia pressed the folder to her desk, sliding it towards her and over the papers she had been signing. “The victim was, Lee Rianda, a local mechanic.”

Lee. Mabel remembered that name, not one of the more prominent ones, but it was memory enough for her take a sharp breath. The convenience store, the Woodstick concert, Wendy, his friends were going to be torn to pieces and the thought made her fingers twitch as they slid under the cover of the folder. The first thing to catch her attention were the photos, and the lump that had slid down her throat moments ago went chillingly cold. His body at various angles, where his neck had been sliced viciously, the dark bruises of rope marks around his neck, face expressionless. No terror, no fear, just emptiness.

“Pines.”

“I’m fine, sir.” One of his thick eyebrows hit his forehead, but Mabel was already delving deep through the information, placing the photos aside. Found in the forest, covered in a sheet. “Witnesses?”

“Only who found the body, a Daniel Corduroy.”

“Evidence of a suspect?”

“None so far. We’ve contacted a nearby forensics scientist to examine the body.”

Mabel breathed out. There was no doubt the news had spread like wildfire through a town as small as Gravity Falls. “This person is going to kill again.”

“Excuse me?”

Mabel placed the photos back inside, trying not to look at them as she closed the folder. “He was killed first, then strung up, that cut in his neck couldn’t have been from the rope. This isn’t manslaughter or a murder over an argument. Whoever killed Lee Rianda, they wanted his body to be found.”

“To what end though?”

“That’s what will lead us to our killer.”

“You’ll take the case then?”

“As soon as possible.” Mabel’s hand still rested on the folder as she spoke, holding Garcia’s gaze until he gave a curt nod.

“Effective immediately.”

Her brows came together, her eyes traveled to the desk. There were still unfilled reports, other evaluations. “And my current work?”

“All the relevant information to your previous investigation is filled, the rest can be forwarded to Marissa until you get back.” Garcia took the files from her desk as Mabel pushed them forward. She tried to hide her smirk and packed her workbag. Computer, the file on Lee’s murder, and her notebook all contained within the black bag with a few bright colored buttons pinned to the strap. She slung the bag over her shoulder and moved with a quick step. Her boss was already standing in Marissa’s door as Mabel passed by, and she knew the other woman could see her. That was also because Mabel stopped to wave at her. Through the door, she could see Marissa’s flat expression and her coworker mouthed a few words towards Mabel. Fuck you.

She scrambled towards the nearest exit before Garcia noticed her, or rather, before he left and let Marissa give chase to chew her out. The extra energy settled into her, determination, excitement, and a smidge of vengeance boiling pumping through her arteries. This was not quelled by traffic trying to get home. Her pinkie tapped out to the latest pop on the radio. It wasn’t hard for her mind to travel to immediate suspects. Of course Gideon. Gideon had a criminal record that went beyond his first incident in prison, though it still paled in comparison to Stan’s documentation. Being an F.B.I agent had its perks. The local police must have already interrogated him. Hopefully, Mabel didn’t want to get within a fifty-foot radius of him if she could help it.

Her finger stopped tapping. Were there any other immediate suspects? She hadn’t been to Gravity Falls in years, and short visits weren’t enough time to get to know anyone. Most of the names she could recall off the top of her head were people who had either died years ago, or had left the small town behind for their own lives.

Even the people she had gotten so close to had left. Wendy, Soos, even Grandpa Stanley had left for New Mexico to study migration patterns of Chupacabras. She understood. It was all he could do to avoid a town with too many memories. Everyone had their reasons.

Except one person didn’t leave Gravity Falls behind.

“Oh shoot, right.” Mabel’s hand went for her phone just as traffic moved again and the sounds of car horns were no longer distant sounds, but ones immediately behind her. When she got home. She would call when she got home.

By the time she had pushed through traffic, slamming her hand on the horn a few times out of frustration it had been an hour. The commute was twenty minutes during good traffic. She sprinted for her apartment, tearing up the stairs and running into her flat.

Call. That was first on the list. Call. Put him on speaker if you have to move, just call your brother. Don’t water the cactus yet, don’t clean the dirty dishes in the sink yet, call Dipper. Mabel repeated this to herself, over and over even with the phone in her hand. She pressed a few buttons, making sure she could hear the ringing out loud before she pulled out a suitcase, still partially packed from her last job. There was a click as she went through her clothes.

“Mabel?”

“Dip!” She shouted towards the bed where her phone was resting.

“Mabel, I’m kind of doing a tour in a few minutes.” Something was off about his voice, and it drew Mabel’s mouth into a thin line as she folded up a sweater on the bed. “Do you have me on speaker?”

“I haven’t talked to you in weeks, and the first thing you say is that you’re doing a mystery tour?”

“It’s not a mystery tour, just taking some tourists to see the town.”

“Uh-huh, like the time you accidently led a group through a cursed door and almost got their souls ripped out of their bodies?”

“One time. And they were fine.” She laughed and moved onto the next outfit, laying a few articles out and evaluating them before giving an approving nod and they went in the suitcase. Should she also bring an extra suit? “Why are you calling me now? Aren’t you at work?”

“Kind of.”

“Kind of?”

“Kind of.” Mabel said with a resolute nod, both to their conversation and towards her closet, rummaging through until she found another black suit with a small call of victory.

“Mabel, I’m on the clock.”

“Is Ford’s room open?”

Dipper went silent for a moment, she could hear his mind buzzing over the phone. Or it was just static. “You mean the old break room?”

“Yup.”

He was quiet, but there was a slight tension between them, even without being in the same room. Mabel stopped folding for a moment and looked down at the glowing screen, staring at Dipper’s contact photo. The same one they took together the last time she was in town. “You heard?”

“And got assigned to the case.” The silence stretched between them. There was no banter anymore, none of the energy their other conversations carried. It was heavy, uncomfortably slow. “You okay?”

“The town’s whipped up into a frenzy. If it was a Gremloblin or the Hide-Behind it wouldn’t be as big, but,” Dipper swallowed once and Mabel’s own throat felt dry, “holy shit, Mabel. Lee’s dead.”

“Easy there bro, we’ll get them.”

We. Mabel felt the beginnings of a smile tug her lips unconsciously. Dipper couldn’t be directly involved, but he was there. Dipper would be there to help in whatever way he could.

In the background she could hear other voices, the short whisk of what sounded like the receiver being covered and Dipper’s voice muffled through it before he spoke again. “How about we go out to dinner tomorrow night?”

“Greasy’s?”

“Where else?”

A small laugh left her. “Sounds like a plan, see you tomorrow, bro-bro, and try not to feed the tourists to the Gobblewonker.” She let Dipper start his protest, then reached over and hung up halfway through with a full-blown laugh. The laugh tapered off. This wasn’t a vacation, this wasn’t for fun or relaxation. Lee was dead. Someone else was going to die. Her eyes hardened at the phone. Everyone in Gravity Falls was in danger, innocent tourists, local townsfolk, and even Dipper. It made her straightened teeth clench and grind once before she released her jaw.

It took her a few hours to have everything squared away. The sun had dipped beneath the buildings and coastline as she loaded her suitcases into the car and started the engine. A woman in a black car still wearing a suit driving through the night, the light from other cars and streetlights catching a shooting star pin stuck into the lapel of her suit.


	3. Do Those Cliffs Look Like Jaws To You?

Mabel blinked a few times against the blurred darkness. Trees that towered above the road looked like they were invading the asphalt. She had long since passed the wall-to-wall traffic of the city and the landscape had changed from wasteland and cities to thick forests along the dark road. Only once in a while another set of headlights would temporarily blind her along the highway. She could see a sign reflect her headlights just briefly, a small green sign barely noticeable with bright white lettering. Oregon.

She reached for the coffee sitting in he cup holder she had picked up along the way at a twenty-four hour doughnut stop and found it to be much lighter than she remembered. There was only enough for one more gulp before she was grabbing for drops of caffeine. It was just barley enough to fight off the weight of her eyelids. She wanted to crash immediately at the Shack the moment she got there and sleep, but she knew that wasn’t going to happen.

Dirt spat from beneath the wheels as she pulled off to the side of the road until it came to a stop. The folder her boss had given her was tucked away in her bag sitting in the passenger seat. There had been a number to call, the slip of paper was pinched between her fingers and written in Garcia’s chicken-scratch handwriting. The phone rang a few times, three before a tired voice spoke to her. “Gravity Falls police department.”

“Hello, this is Mabel Pines. May I speak to the sheriff?”

The woman over the line paused for a moment, shuffling a few papers. “Sheriff Durland won’t be in until six. I can transfer your call to the deputy.”

There was a brief pause, a short click as the line changed over and a deeper voice spoke. “Deputy speaking.”

“This is Mabel Pines from the-“ Mabel didn’t get much farther as the deputy spoke and there was a small clatter from the other end of the call.

“Wait, Pines? Like, are you related to a Dipper Pines by any chance?”

“Yes.”

“My sister told me all about you.”

She would have tried to brush it off, but the comment made her eyebrows raise, then come back together. “Sister?”

“Wendy. I’m Keith Corduroy.”

She could feel the heat from her ears, but Wendy’s name brought the beginnings of a smile to her face. “I hope they were good things.”

“Nothing but. What can I do you for?”

“I’m coming to Gravity Falls on behalf of the Federal Bureau of Investigation on the Lee Rhianda case.”

And just like that the pleasantries were gone. For a moment Keith didn’t speak. A hand went over the receiver and in the background noise she could hear other voices talking, or rather yelling back and forth, then Henry’s voice once again. “Can you confirm this when you get to the station?”

“I’ll be there in a few hours. You have any coffee?”

“Count on it.” The line went dead and Mabel let out a breath, her head resting against the back of her seat as she stared at the dark empty road ahead of her. Durland was the sheriff now? The thought made the exhale of her breath punch out of her lungs and she rubbed at the crease that had formed between her eyebrows. Gravity Falls would have been in some serious trouble if she didn’t step in. They were still in trouble, and it didn’t help that she was sitting there contemplating taking a nap on the side of the road.

Her hands clamped onto the steering wheel as she finally took the car out of park and returned to the road, turning up the pop music playing on the radio. Even that turned to static.

The world was made of dark shadows. Time passed slowly and turned the world a desaturated version of itself as the sun finally began to rise. In the distance, she could see a mountain with a split through it, jagged ruptures yawning out towards the world, and an old rickety bridge just barely holding together between them. Mabel could feel the weight of her eyes and the smile that touched her lips at the sight of the cliffs. There was a sign for Gravity Falls with a cheap plank of wood nailed to it and worn black scrawl written on it on the side of the road. Visit the Mystery Shack?

She had to laugh, forcing herself to slow her car down as each gasp made her shoulders shake. There was no way that was Dipper’s doing, but there was no way she wasn’t going to give Dipper hell for not replacing it or putting up something a little more tasteful.

As she passed beneath the bridge, she couldn’t help but notice how everything turned darker. Light had yet to touch the sheltered town, and the hairs on the back of her neck bristled at the chill that settled in her chest. Nothing seemed right about Gravity Falls. It was still early morning, but even then it seemed quiet. There was no distant roaring of a creature, no bright colors. Everything was dull and the tension was too thick on her tongue.

Mabel made a beeline for the police department, but she couldn’t help but look down the dirt road she passed along the way. A totem pole stared out from between the trees. There was a sign, freshly painted in neat handwriting for the Mystery Shack. She blinked and swallowed as her eyes darted back to the road.

The town was quiet. Most folks still sleeping by the time she rolled up to the police department with only two other cars in the parking lot, one of them a police cruiser. Everything else was familiar, all the same places, though with a little more paint chipping away and a few signs standing up in a few windows. Mabel chose not to look at the words written on them after she had seen the first two going out of business signs.

Inside she found someone at the front desk, and not a familiar face. The woman glanced up at her with startlingly bright green eyes and freckles that just barely stood out from her dark skin from over a mug of coffee. Mabel could taste the smell in the air and it made her want to consume the smell of fresh coffee and sugar. “Can I help you?”

Not a beat was missed. Mabel reached into the interior pocket of her suit and pulled out a badge, the same one that was issued to her a few years ago. The woman at the desk took it into her hand, squinting and looking back up at Mabel once, twice, then handed the card back. “Glad we got some actual help, it’s gone to absolute shit around here.”

“Is there someone in I can talk to?”

“Keith’s in the break-room. Down the hall and second door to the left.”

“Thank you, miss-“

“Just call me Adi.” She spoke over her lip of her mug, sipping from it once again as Mabel walked away from the front desk and wandered through the hall. Second door to the right, it wasn’t that far. The Gravity Falls police station was so much smaller than how she remembered looking at the building as a kid. Everything seemed so much bigger back then, and looking at everything now they seemed to have withered to a shadow of her imagination.

The door opened in a flurry, a slight splash, and Mabel managed to keep on her feet as someone crashed into her, yelled a flurry of swears, and fell back before yelping again.

She held onto the frame of the door, slowly blinking at the man with thick red hair trying to wipe the coffee stains away before they set. “You okay?”

He looked up at her, only a second, but long enough for him to start cursing again under his breath. “Great job man, first day working with secret agents and you fuck it up right away.”

In all honesty, she couldn’t help but laugh, but offered a helping hand all the same and pulled him to his feet. “I’m guessing you’re Keith?”

There were a few gaps in his teeth that accompanied the pulled smile, just like the ones Mabel had set in her own mouth for several years ago until her braces straightened them. He took her hand and got his feet under him before he spoke to her, still rubbing out the coffee stains in his uniform that was already and off-white color. “Yup, klutz-master extraordinaire right here.”

“Hope there’s more coffee in the coffee pot than on your shirt.” Those words put Keith’s body on temporary lock then scrambling into the room with Mabel walking in behind him.

Not much made up the room. There was a small counter housing a few appliances. A coffee machine, microwave, a toaster that looked like it would catch fire any day, and a mini-fridge that Keith was already rummaging through. She sat in a nearby chair. “Sorry, this place is a mess.” A mug was handed to her a minute later, warm with a sweet scent lingering around her. “Hope it’s okay.”

Steam lifted from her mug, a small crack running through the handle and she couldn’t help but smile at the symbol of the question mark. It felt almost like home. “Perfect already.” She sipped at the coffee and blinked up at Keith. The man stared down at her. There was something there, the sort of curiosity and awe someone had when standing in the presence of ghosts they knew. The warmth was taken away by the start of the air conditioning and the question she asked. “Do you have photos of the body?”

Keith’s entire body jolted at those words, but he blinked, broken out of the trance and left the room. Mabel drank from her coffee, exhaustion still weighed down her eyes. On the far wall there were photos hung up, framed and placed with a care that the appliances didn’t receive. She could see Blubs and Durland in one, holding cotton candy at a local fair and grinning at the camera. There was a recent one of Keith with Durland on the wall, the older man’s buzz-cut hair still hidden under a hat, but some shadow to his face and a little wider-set than she recalled the man years ago. He wasn’t the same. She knew it was silly of her to think that Gravity Falls was immune to time.

“Here,” Keith came back to the room, almost dropping the folder held in his hand. “I took the photos the day the body was found.”

“And the body?”

“Currently being held at the clinic, the Valentino’s have helped preserve the body, but the funeral is being held at the end of the week, so we have until Friday.”

She sucked in a breath, but took the folder and flipped through it. Her hands were on autopilot, sifting through each photo. They were closer than the ones in the file her boss. She could see the marks where he had been cut more clearly, the gashes too large to be a knife, even if the rope had stretched the wound. His head was held onto by only sections of muscle and his spine. The bone was visible.

“You okay?” She swallowed and gave a short nod, examining each photo.

“Has anyone done a full examination of the body?”

“We have a forensics scientist from Portland coming in to do a full autopsy.” There was a distance to his eyes, eyebrows drawn together. Mabel would have inquired further if Keith didn’t breathe out the answer before she could ask. “Wendy shouldn’t have to deal with this.”

And there it was, the gut punch that sent the air out of her lungs. “You called her in?”

“I didn’t.” The words were snapped, short, but growing softer again as he went on, choosing to lean against the counter and folding his arms. Defensive, Mabel knew the stance well and was suddenly picking apart every action. Every little jump, how his eyes traveled to the wall of photos, his index finger twitching on reflex. Keith’s behavior had an anxious energy ever since she arrived. Not the subtle bit that everyone in town would have. It was personal, in more ways than one. “The Feds thought it would be good to assign people who’ve been here before to this case. Doesn’t help that my sis is one of the best forensic scientists in the state.”

“I’m sorry.”

“She would have had to come for the funeral.” He paused, lips thinning and pulled into a tight line before releasing the muscles. “The rest of the gang are on their way too.” He wouldn’t look directly at her, it was always either the photos, the door, or the floor. The tension of the room curled into a ball in her stomach, twisting a few times until she washed it away with another sip of coffee. It wasn’t enough to unravel the knot. Her mind raced, trying to find something that would ease it away. It was all too personal for the both of them, and they were enigmas to each other.

“All the more reason to catch this person, right?” A nod is what she got in response. “Did Wendy tell you about the convenience store incident?”

There was a short laugh, more breath than sound, but Mabel could see the twitch of something in his face. The ease coming across his expression. “Wendy told me about it a long time ago. I didn’t believe her.”

“Did she tell you about how I was possessed by the ghosts?” She could have laughed at the look that flashed on Keith’s face. Well, it got him to look at her. Granted, there was a shock of fear and curiosity, but it was progress. “It was weird, my head was fuzzy and I kept hearing screams and rap.”

That almost got a laugh out of Keith, not quite. “Rap?”

“Yeah, I don’t remember a lot, but apparently rap music gave them both heart attacks. They released me after Dipper beat them with a bat.”

He went silent for a minute, and Mabel was worried. Keith no longer had his arms crossed, opting to lean back against the counter, but the silence unnerved her. “I still can’t believe all of that went down that summer.”

“You bet your badge it did.” Mabel set the half full mug aside on the coffee table, not quite smiling, but her hands rested at her sides, trying not to pick at the fibers. “This town was my childhood town, and no one gets to mess with it.”

That earned her a bark of laughter from Keith, and like that the weight of the atmosphere lifted. “Glad that out of all the agents we could get, we got the one who actually likes backwater hick towns.” Mabel couldn’t help but grin back. It was still a little tight on her face, not quite the happy go-lucky feelings she had around people she knew. Mabel would still take what she got. “So, what next?”

“How about we head out to where the body was found? I’ll keep going over the photos along the way.”

“Alright, Agent Pines.” The keys swung around a few times on his finger as they walked out of the room, passing Adi on their way. “We’re heading to the scene, can you tell Durland when he gets in?”

A look passed over Adi’s face, her lips thinning, about to gnaw on them. Pale eyes darted over to Mabel, but away again as she caught her gaze. Something had transpired between the her and Keith, but Adi only sighed and scribbled down a few things on a piece of paper. “You’ll probably get back before he even shows up.”

She thought to ask about it, maybe in the car, but not here. Adi’s face had a veil of darkness over it, watching them like a hawk even as they left the building. But Mabel was not a patient person and asked the moment they walked out the door. “What was that about?”

He paused at the car, rubbing a hand over the scratch of his stubble; his eyes became distant. Just like that, Mabel was watching him with a scrutinized and observant gaze. Waiting. Keith was no fool and stared back at her. “Why do you keep doing that?”

“You’re not answering my question.”

“I’ll get to it, you’re just like her, you know that?” That brought a smile to Mabel’s face, but she tapped a nail against the metal of the car. “Look, Durland’s not a bad cop or anything, you know?” He chose to ignore the snort that almost escaped the woman. “He’s been coming in late. Blubs was pretty shaken up after the incident, okay?”

That made Mabel’s eyebrows shoot up to her hairline. “Wait, so they’re-?”

“Don’t say a word.” Keith’s voice hit a register Mabel had yet to hear. Not the impatient snapping or a stutter, a deep rumble and his green eyes focused on her with the power that Adi’s held earlier. “I mean it, Durland’s a great Sheriff and a great guy, you got that?”

“Relax there, deputy,” she had to stop him, though she was curious if he could at least bend the key ring being crushed between his fingers. “I’m happy for them, it’s about time if you ask me.” The transition from protective rage to neutral is a slow process, but he gives a small nod. “So, is that why she gave you that look?”

“Half of it.” He gave a slight motion with his head and opened the car door, Mabel followed into the passenger seat, adjusting herself and feeling the itch of the upholstery beneath her suit. He only continued once they were on the road. “He wasn’t on patrol that night. Things have been so tense. Until we get shit straightened up and figure out who did this, people are itching to find someone to blame.”

“Let me guess, it all falls on your shoulder’s along with Durland?”

“And Adi, she’s got to filter through all of the panicky letters and comments on our department. She didn’t become a secretary because she had a bubbly personality. She was also the only applicant that had almost ten years of Taekwondo under their belt.”

“Holy shit.”

“Yup.” A beat of silence hung between them. Mabel knew she was no pushover either. Boxing and wrestling had spoken to that violent and infinite pool of energy that she had, and it had shown when she had gotten into close combat on a case and lifted the man over her head like a sack of potatoes. She made sure he dropped like an anvil. But even that memory sounded a schoolyard fight compared to the whirlwind that the secretary could turn into. Looking at Keith now, she couldn’t help but take in the relaxed smile on his face and it brought a scheming grin to her face that Keith didn’t see.

She would pick on him later, maybe when they gathered in the break room for coffee. She could set them up when there wasn’t a freshly dead body sitting in a morgue.


	4. Are All Officers Like That?

The walk from the road took ten minutes, parked off by the side of the road behind another police cruiser. There were no nearby trails, no dirt paths packed down or animal tracks making lines through the trees. The only way Mabel knew they were getting close was because she could see the gleam of neon yellow police tape between the redwood trees and the occasional officer walking around the site, just the edge, never inside the circle of tape.

“Right over there.” Keith pointed out to the area, pushing through the underbrush with a confidence that came with familiarity of a landscape. “We marked off a thirty foot radius around the tree he was hung in. I’ve put a few officers on watch so nothing gets messed with before the area gets a good rake-through.”

The two officers blinked at them and even from a distance she could see the dark bags under their eyes with a little too much white flashing like a warning sign of paranoia. One nearly stumbled walking over to them, almost tripping on a root sticking up beneath the dirt. “Are we off shift?”

“Not yet. Someone’s going to have to take Agent Pines back to the station.”

Like everyone else, the young man jumped, startled into awakening from his tired state and stared at Mabel, close enough for her to see the dark brown of his irises. What struck her was how young the boy looked. Too young to be a real officer and that alone set off a few warning bells in her head. The boy’s eyes were wide with the sort of awe that Mabel had been receiving from a lot of people that day. “Pines?”

“Mabel, this is Samuel Drishti, a trainee for the Gravity Falls police department.” He motioned to the woman not too far away. The officer refused to come closer yet but her face was already set into a deep scowl. “And over there is his mentor, Officer Ramona Cornelio.”

“So this is the fed they called in?” Her voice was clipped and as harsh as the shocks of white streaking her brown hair. Ramona’s eyes were like drills accented by deep crow’s feet and Mabel couldn’t help but stare back at her for a moment. Arms crossed, shoulders squared. But Ramona huffed and turned her gaze on Samuel. He jumped beneath her harsh gaze and took a few steps back. “Go patrol the far side, kid.”

He didn’t hesitate to move away, it took one look at his mentor to send him scurrying away. Once he was out of earshot she turned to Keith with a scowl. “You’re bringing kids into this?”

“Says miss ghost-possessed.”

Mabel gave a heaving sigh. She remembered how terrifying her own childhood was and how close to death she had come. Hell, she could have given Death high-fives every time she and Dipper had brushed by it. “The supernatural is one thing, murder is another.”

“Maybe it’s different in San Francisco where you got murder on a daily basis, Pines,” Ramona stalked forward and Mabel met the gaze of the other officer, keeping her head high, “But we don’t have a lot of people running around, little alone needing to kill each other.”

“He’s a teenager.”

“He’s also one of the few kids out here that wants to stay in this town.” Ramona stopped just a foot away from Mabel, just below her eye-level, but the hostile energy radiating from the woman could bring ice to a boil. “We take what we get, and if you don’t want your evidence being tampered with, you can and will overlook that little fact, _estiendes_?”

“Ramona,” Keith’s voice was a quick snap, and Ramona’s head moved just as quickly to look at him. “Reign it in. You and Sam can sleep once Ms. Pines gets a look at the scene. I’ll take shift from there.” She snorted, but Mabel followed where her eyes traveled to see Samuel glancing through the trees at them. The boy jumped and walked off, trying to look occupied with keeping watch. Ramona walked away over to Sam, but Mabel could still hear a string of words being said under her breath, none of them even Mabel could decipher. Keith rubbed a hand along the back of his neck before he could look her in the eye again. “We’re all a little worked up, so let’s get to work before she chews anyone else out.”

Mabel watched Ramona walk away, snapping something at Sam who jumped to attention, nodded, and walked along the perimeter of the tape. “Is she going to keep this up?”

An exasperated sigh left Keith. It was all the answer that Mabel needed. “Let’s get to work. This is where the body was found?”

They walked a little further, past the yellow tape and Keith motioned to a large tree. A few saplings grew nearby, the tree itself was massive, overshadowing the smaller ones beneath outstretched branches. “Right here, that section where the branch was broken off is where the body was found hanging, covered in a white sheet. And,” Keith motioned to the nearby ground, not quite looking at it head on. Mabel could see the skid marks from a set of boots dug deep into the foliage and dirt. “Right there is where the body landed after my dad pulled him off. We got out here and photographed the area and body before it was moved.”

She wasn’t aware that she was nodding, but walked over to the tree with careful steps, walking around it. Her gaze rested on a low bearing branch, attracted by the bright orange plastic. “What’s this?”

Needles crunched beneath his feet as he walked around the tree to see what Mabel had her eyes fixed on. “One of dad’s markers, he uses them to mark out trees that need to be cut.”

“Gloves and bag. Two sets of gloves, please.” Mabel wouldn’t look at him, but she could hear his footsteps shifting away to retrieve them. The off-red smudge was blood if she ever saw it, though not the killer. It wouldn’t hurt to check, but she had a feeling this was not where Lee was killed. There were off-colored stains against the redwood, too faint, like the blood had been accidentally wiped across it. Keith came back with two sets of plastic gloves, both pairs snapped over Mabel’s wrists and fitting over her fingers as she pried the tag away and placed it in a bag that Keith held open with wary eyes.

“You don’t think that my dad-“

“Everyone’s a possibility.” At Keith’s inhale she huffed and shook her head. “He’s a one percent chance, there are other suspects to look at before we go into stupid crazy theory town.”

“Right, right.” He still looked slightly dazed, staring at the plastic bag and the bright orange strip of plastic just barely smudged with blood. She knew that Dan raised his kids to be outdoor adventurers, but animals had to be different from staring someone down and slicing their throat. Mabel swallowed down these thoughts and motioned for Keith to follow her. He did so after a beat, his foot almost catching on a root before he stumbled and caught his footing once more.

She kept a careful eye on the ground, stepping around where the foliage looked disturbed or slightly flattened. Mabel kept this up, until she reached the end of the police tape and stared out into the dark of the forest. “What’s down that way?”

A beat of silence. She could feel Sam and Ramona staring at her but Mabel looked ahead, her eyebrows drawn together as her mind turned. “What do you mean?”

“Buildings, landmarks, points of interest, give me something here.” Her voice held impatience. She couldn’t keep her train of thought going without something to fuel a conclusion. It made her hands twitch at her side, grasping for an answer that wasn’t quite there yet.

“Um, the downtown area? The cemetery isn’t far either, we’re on the south side of town.” Keith stared at her for a moment longer, watching the agent’s shoulder relax. Not laid-back, but some energy diverted to an internal storage. There was still some stiffness in her figure, but with shoulders held rigid and ready to move.

“The murderer dragged the body out here from somewhere in the downtown area, working alone most likely.” Her voice was taut, but the statement was said with conviction and Keith couldn’t help but blink at the woman’s back. “There’s a few spots where the ground is flattened and fern leaves are broken. They’re in a linear path.”

“Why wouldn’t they just murder Lee out here?”

She pressed a hand over her mouth and mumbled through it. Listening to herself was always a help with new information. “Murdered in town? But the forest is a discrete location. Maybe they met somewhere and he was caught off his guard-“

“Mabel?”

“Did Lee Rhianda have a cell phone?”

“Well, yeah. Of course he had a cell phone. Why are you asking?”

“I need to make a call.” He didn’t follow her as she walked away, but she gave a passing glance to Ramona and Sam. The agent made sure to put some distance between herself and the others. Her hand found her phone in an interior pocket of her jacket, pressing a few buttons until the phone rang in her ears and it gave a short click. “Hey-“

“Hey yourself, asshole.” There was no attempt on Marrissa’s part to hide the animosity in her voice. “You dump all your paperwork on me and take off on a case while I’m stuck behind a desk.”

“I need you to look up something for me.”

“No, fuck you. You dump your work on me and have the goddamn nerve to ask for my help?”

A sigh left Mabel and she ran her fingers through her hair. Okay, this was not a smart move on her part. “Okay, okay, I’m sorry alright? Look, I’ll take you out to dinner. I’ll buy all your drinks. Heck, I’ll take you out to get mani-pedi’s at the most expensive nail salon in San Francisco. I need your help, okay?”

There was a beat of silence over the phone. “Everything okay over there?”

“You didn’t personally know the victim and have family at risk of being the next victim, that answer your question?”

There was no hesitation, but she could hear the annoyance in her coworker’s voice. “What do you need?”

“Ask Garcia to forward information on Lee Rhianda. I need a history of his calls over the past week. Who he’s talked to and when, and if you can, get a history of his text messages.”

“It’s going to take some time.”

Mabel pushed some hair beneath her headband and nodded despite the fact that Marissa couldn’t see her. “Thanks.”

“Remember, I’m going to hold you to your promises.”

“I don’t doubt that.” The phone was already hung up as Mabel spoke. Marissa was going to burn a hole in her wallet when she got back but it was worth it to get out of paperwork, more so to get out to Gravity Falls on this case. As the agent slipped her phone back into her pocket and turned she blinked at the officers. There were all gathered together and listening to another man that had stomped over, wearing a police uniform and wide-brimmed hat.

It took a moment for Mabel to remember him, a large nose sat between his deep-set eyes. When he spoke around a thick accent, it didn’t take any time at all for her to piece together his identity. “Since when did ya’ll start takin’ orders from a city-girl working for suits? Last I checked, she wasn’t the sheriff, an’-“ His eyes snapped to her. “You.”

“Hey, Deputy Durland, been a while.”

“Sheriff.”

“Oh, I know.” She couldn’t help the light tone that snuck into her voice. His face was a bright red, hands clenched at his sides. “But since the sheriff couldn’t be bothered sticking around, I figured I’d get started on this case.”

“Ain’t no case we can’t solve on our own, Pines. This isn’t some supernatural monster mystery for kids to crack.” Her last name was almost spit at the ground, but it did nothing to deter the smile on Mabel’s face. This wasn’t the first time she’s met resistance from the police. It was always some old sense of pride in their department, and Durland’s history was an open book.

“I’m not sure that’s the case if you can’t keep work and your personal life separate.” A flash of shock flickered in Durland’s face before it turned another shade of red. “It was asked that I come, or would you rather have someone who doesn’t have a personal stake in this town?”

He didn’t say anything to her, but turned on his heel to Ramona and Sam. “Take her back to the station, and you,” Durland’s head snapped to Keith and Mabel’s own blood ran cold. “I want to have a word with you.”

“Hold on now-“ She tried to give some semblance of protest, but Keith shot her a look accompanied by a small subtle shake of his head. Mabel let herself be guided back to the police cruisers, but glanced back and saw Durland staring his deputy down before the trees swallowed them.

“He’ll be fine.” Sam glanced away when Mabel looked down at the boy. He wouldn’t look her in the eye and kept his gaze on the ground, half out of respect and half out of keeping himself from tripping on anything. “Durland’s been kind of touchy, but he’s just going to give Keith a lecture.”

“Samuel.” His mouth snapped shut at the warning tone in Ramona’s voice. “Respect the sheriff, or it’s going to be you next.” In the same instant her eyes landed on Mabel with the same hardness of stature that the woman held herself with. “And I suggest you do the same.”

“I’m just trying to do my job.” It was hard for Mabel to hold her tongue. She wanted to mention the things that the officers had tried to do to her and Dipper in their younger years. What would be the point though? They didn’t go through with it in the end, but it put her on edge. Just like having to ride in the back of Ramona’s police cruiser.

To say the ride back was comfortable would have been a blatant lie. Mabel had never been on the other side of the glass. Bulletproof glass. With a steel mesh woven between them. At one point she caught Sam’s face looking into the rearview mirror. The boy look terrified, and Mabel couldn’t figure out if it was because being an officer was harsh or the fact that they had forced a Federal Agent to sit in the back like a criminal. In all honesty it wasn’t as odd as learning to make an improvised flamethrower out of a sparkler and a can of silly string but Mabel could have gone without the car driving over every pothole in the road.

“You did all of that on purpose.” The moment they pulled up to the station she turned on the officer, gritting her teeth against slight irritation and the ache that had blossomed in her spine.

“Look, you’re back at the station. End of story.” The other door clicked, but didn’t get much further than that. “Stay there Sam, I’m taking you home.”

“But-“

“School’s picking up again tomorrow. No buts, now sit yours down.” Mabel stood there, watching for a few moments as the car pulled back out into the streets and disappeared down Main Street.

The moment she walked in Adi whistled at her from the front desk. “Ramona?” Mabel gave her a withering look. “She’s an ornery piece of work.”

“But you won’t say that to her face.”

“Hell no.” There was no time wasted as Mabel walked down the hall back to the break room. Adi said nothing else, but watched the woman for as long as she could before going through the stack of papers sitting on her desk once again.

Her hands moved on their own, cleaning out old grinds in the coffee pot and adding a fresh batch. It wasn’t until the orange light had come on and the smell of coffee hit her in the face that Mabel realized her eyes were trying to close. No, no she had things she still had to do.

She gave a call back to Marissa, but that got her a barked response, “I’m buried up to my neck over here, I’ll try to have it by tomorrow.” So Mabel resisted the urge to call again. That didn’t stop her from writing down names and taking a hard look at an old outdated map. A frown instantly came to her face as she listed Gideon’s name on the list of suspects. He had a criminal record since he was nine and he had come close to murder before. There had to be others.

Mabel didn’t even want to say a possible name. She was already on the verge of sleep and didn’t need nightmares of one-eyed demons. Still, there was a possibility. The agent gave a resound sigh, pacing a few times through the room before sitting down and final putting the name to pen and began marking off the map.

“Don’t tear the plaster off the walls, we don’t need to spend funding on renovations.” Adi peaked into the room, eyeing the coffee pot.

“No promises.” Adi stared back at Mabel. She had hunched over photos, scattered over an almost outdated map with a red marker in hand. The site was marked off as large red X with thinner lines pointed out to circled locations on the map.

“The cemetery? Really?”

“It’s a possibility.”

“A murder in a graveyard though is just plain cliché.” Adi’s voice was just background noise as Mabel stared at the map. Her eyes unfocused, the lines blurring together like they were seeping into the rest of the map. “Hey, hello?” The secretary’s voice became louder, more than she remembered and it made Mabel jump. “Welcome back to Earth.”

“I’m fine.” She refused to look at Adi because she knew the secretary was giving a disapproving look. Mabel could feel it in the back of her head along with the slight buzz of sleep depravation.

“Because driving through the night and immediately going to the scene of a murder is perfectly normal and healthy.” Before her eyes the papers were taken, faster than Mabel’s reflexes. She could have chalked it up to being tired, but one, Mabel wouldn’t admit it; and two; it would have been a close tie between them even if she wasn’t. “Get an hour of rest before you wreck yourself.”

In all honesty she wanted to keep working. She could still see bits of the map and some of the photos that were tucked under Adi’s arm. The moment the mention of rest passed Adi’s mouth a wave of exhaustion swept over Mabel and was only amplified by the rough ride back to the station. The secretary didn’t leave until Mabel had finally admitted defeat and rested back against the couch. She was out before Adi could close the door behind her.

Sleep was a weird thing with her. Mabel never had much trouble sleeping as a kid. She would burn herself out during the day until her art projects and activities bordered on the side of mania. Art turned into schoolwork, then actual work, then investigating insurance frauds and gangs along San Francisco and Oakland.

She dreamed she was twelve again, but not in Gravity Falls. It was the office building back in the city. But it was off. Everything had an older rustic look. Bits of the Mystery Shack were strewn about. There was the fake mermaid with its horrible cracked skin and visible stitches. On a wall she passed was an old worn calendar with a marked date, July fourth, nineteen eighty-two. She knew what that date meant now.

What threw Mabel off the most in that dream was the gun in her hands. She was twelve, but all of her memories after were there. The nerves where her hands held the gun were numb.

At the end of the hall was a vending machine, the same one from the Mystery Shack, with a multicolored light growing brighter and brighter just behind the machine. The light pulsed, at first matching her footsteps, then her racing pulse. “Mabel.”

Her throat felt tight. The old photos of co-workers and people of the past looked at her. “Mabel.”

Their bodies warped, until each of them was a single eye staring her down.

“Pines!” Many things happened at once. For starters, Mabel’s hand’s lashed out. One caught the edge of the couch, keeping her from falling. The other had formed into a fist and connected with something somewhat solid that she was ninety-nine percent positive was a person. Scrambling to sit up, she blinked down at Keith. Said officer sat on the ground in an almost fetal position clutching his stomach.

“Oh my god! Keith, breathe, breathe. You okay?” Within a second Mabel was kneeling on the ground, almost ready to call the doctor until Keith coughed a few times and struggled to sit up. That didn’t stop him from clutching his stomach.

There were another few coughs before Keith could finally give a slight grin through the bruising. “You and Adi need to hold a fight, someone would pay to see which of you would win.”

“What happened with Durland? He let you off this early?”

And like that, the toothy grin fell into a look that terrified her. It wasn’t horror, or disgust, or his eyeballs rolling back into the cavity of his skull. He looked confused, and it made her still-racing heart drop into her stomach. “What do you mean? That was a few hours ago.”

A few hours ago. A few hours. Over and over this repeated in Mabel’s head as she turned to look up at the clock. It’s arms pointing ever closer to the late hours and reading somewhere past seven. She knew she had somewhere to be. Those arms felt more like pointing fingers.

“Oh no.”


	5. Is That Jam On Your Face?

In less than a few minutes Mabel had thrown her car into drive and peeled out of the police department parking lot. Maybe she shouldn’t have been speeding and maybe run one of the few red lights in town, but all she could hear was Keith’s words on repeat.

A few hours. A few hours. Why didn’t anyone wake her up? The rage boiling inside of her made her nails dig hard into the steering wheel before letting up to peel around another corner. Of course it was her own fault. Mabel knew that but for once she wanted to internally beat someone up other than herself. She didn’t tell Adi to wake her up. She didn’t tell Keith she had to be somewhere tonight. In the end all of that anger just went in a circle back to her. She couldn’t live with herself if she let down Dipper again, even if it was over something as simple as dinner.

Just down the road she could just see the diner practically blending in with the scenery if it wasn’t for the massive wood sign above the old hollowed out log. There were boards nailed in some places, sometimes multiple ones. All of this didn’t quite make it into Mabel’s thought-addled mind as she sped towards the ever-closer goal. The tires screeched, almost giving out as pavement turned into gravel in the parking lot.

For a moment she allowed herself to breathe. Mabel made it, but she was still late.

As she slammed the door of her car there was a crash from inside the old diner. It was a sound that made her blood run cold and memories of raids and gunshots flew through her head at the same velocity of a bullet. She sprinted up the few steps and slammed open the door only to shriek as some brown creature brushed against her leg and scurried out the door towards the forest.

“Get outta here, get-“ A woman nearly crashed into Mabel, a broom brandished in one hand and stopping just short of her, her enraged face turning into a flash of brief embarrassed horror. Her face went almost as white as the shock of wiry silver hair on her head. “O-oh, hello-“ In an instant, she paused, the broom falling out of her hands and she ran back inside. “Oh, I’m so sorry, Mr. Pines! I swear, those beavers are getting more rambunctious each year.”

Mabel followed the laughter, her feet guiding her through the diner towards the table the woman was standing out, handing off napkins.

At one of the tables was a young man. She knew him immediately and smiled as the small blue pine tree pin glinted on his sweater vest. The one to match her shooting star that they got years ago. Dipper was sitting in the booth, wiping away strawberry jam that had splattered across his face and along the collar of his shirt. “Margret, it’s no problem, really.”

“Here, let me get you more napkins.” The woman turned, but caught Mabel’s gaze staring at them. “Oh, I’m sorry about the mess. Sit anywhere you’d like.”

“Right here is just fine.” She slipped into the booth across from her brother, a smile settling on her face at the surprised look on her brother’s face. He had stopped wiping away the jam from his face in mid-motion from where a thin layer of hair had grown along his jaw. Dipper looked surprised, and it made Mabel’s grin go wider even if it was pulled a little too hard. “You got a little something everywhere on your face, bro-bro.”

“You came.”

“Brother?” Margret gasped next to her, her hands clasped over her mouth and staring at Mabel. “Oh, you’re Mabel Pines! Let me get you a slice of blueberry pie, on the house!” She left in a hurry and Mabel could hear ceramic shards from a fallen plate scrape against the floor in her wake.

“You came.” The surprise in Dipper’s voice wasn’t disguised and carried on an exhale of breath. Mabel rolled her eyes and laid her arms over the table.

“What, you thought I wouldn’t show?”

“In all honesty, yeah.”

His words weren’t harsh but the sting was reminiscent of lemonade spilling onto a cut hand, a harsh sting with a little sugar. “Oh wow, you thought I wasn’t going to make it? Oh how my own kin strikes me down!” If there was one thing Mabel knew it was how to be an actress, whether it was a smile or pretending to swoon in horror. Her brother snorted at her and kicked her leg under the table.

“Cut that out.”

Mabel gave a slight laugh and kicked back. This went on for a moment before she landed a blow against his shin and laughed while Dipper gave up after that. As he rubbed his leg Mabel’s face softened a little. The bags under his eyes looked so much darker than she remembered. For a moment she let the shield on her face fall and leaned a little over the table, but avoided the strawberry jam still splattered on the wood. “Seriously, are you okay?”

“Did you have to kick like-?”

“That’s not what I meant.” Dipper’s eyes were wide as he stared back at his sister. Her eyes have a strange focus despite the gentle concern in her words. Every bit of her seems melancholic. He looked down for a moment and Mabel can’t see his eyes in that instant, but his hand twitched, first wiping off what was left of the jam on his face before picking up his mug. “Yeah, I’m okay. Everything’s just been a little off since that.”

That. Mabel gave a small nod. “We’ll find them.”

“I know you will.” The smile on her brother’s face seems a little forced. Trying to lighten the mood, if just a little. “Just don’t exhaust yourself, workaholic.”

She was taken aback by the comment and protested. “I’m not.”

“Mabel, you disappear for weeks on end without so much as a text message and drove through the entire night just to get here.” Dipper gave a short laugh accompanied by a slight smirk. “You’re like the twelve-year-old version of me.”

A pale color took the rosiness away from Mabel’s cheeks that just matched the tone of morbid horror on her face. “Oh my god. I’m going to become a huge conspiracy nerd.”

“Yeah, but you get paid for it.” Dipper breathed over the edge of his coffee cup. There were still jam stains along the sides, all of them unnoticed by him. “So I’m guessing you met everyone at the station?” As Mabel’s expression went sour he set aside the mug and leaned in a little closer over the table. “What happened?” All Mabel had to give him was a resigned groan. “Ah, I know who you’re talking about.”

“What happened to partying with the rest of the town and hanging out at the local pool?” She couldn’t help but grumble. One of her hands reached for the sugar packets to fiddle with the edges of the multicolored paper. “And last I checked it’s not up to code to have a teen in the force.”

“Sam.” When she glanced at her brother Dipper was rubbing one side of his temples. If anything, he looked irritated. “If Ramona runs him ragged, I swear-“

“Hang on, how do you know Samuel?”

Her brother huffed. A small tick of a frown played at the corner of his mouth before he covered it with his mug again. “I’ve been substituting at the high school if it’s a slow day at the Shack. Samuel had outstanding work last year.”

“Since when did you teach?” He blinked at her. A few times actually before his eyebrows came together beneath his hair.

“I told you like eight months ago.” He paused as Mabel’s shoulder drew taut. “You forgot? Seriously?”

“Sorry.” Eight months ago she had been out in Florida undercover for some sort of fraud. Mortgage? Tax refund? No, no it was some mass Ponzi scheme with an up and coming company. Still, that didn’t make up for Mabel forgetting, or at the very least not seeing what Dipper was up to.

A sudden flare of pain lit up against the skin of her forehead and she whined at her brother that had just flicked her in the forehead and smiled. “Relax, would you? It’s fine.”

“How has school not gotten in the way of other stuff? I mean, I know you can’t rake in the dough like Stan could.” That earned her a low glare. “What about you’re whole spiel on being “the-medium-between-the-paranormal-and-man,” and all that other-“

Mabel’s question was cut short by Margret, returning with a slice of blueberry pie and a fresh mug of coffee set on the table in front of her. “Sorry about the wait. I’ll be right back to clean all of this mess up.” The woman gave a jittery smile at Dipper, placing some more napkins on the table. “And I’m sorry about the jam, I’ll have to get someone to trap those beavers.”

In the chaos of everything Mabel offered a quick thanks to the waitress. There was something off though when she turned to talk to her brother again, a slight darkness that came across Dipper’s face that wasn’t there before she asked the question. Dipper glanced up at her once before lifting his mug again after Margret left. “The Multibear won’t live through the winter.”

He drank from the mug as Mabel stared at him and tried to process the words. “What?”

“Several of his heads have already died off. They’re already beginning to rot on his body.” Mabel could taste bile in her throat. “They controlled the extra limbs, so he can barely forage and hunt. He can’t remove them because the bleeding will lead to an infection and quicker death.”

It was hard to swallow around the lump in her throat that had a powerful acidic taste. Mabel managed all the same and asked in a quiet voice, “Can we do anything for him?”

“I already asked a few weeks ago when I was in the neighborhood.” He wasn’t so much drinking his coffee as talking around the lip of the mug. Even with his words muffled, each one carried enough weight to feel like a hot metal prong between her ribs. “I offered if he wanted to stay at the Shack and let me monitor him through the season, but turned the offer down. He said it would just be delaying the inevitable and it would be nice to just sleep it away.”

Mabel wasn’t sure what she could say. What could she say? The Multibear was one of the few creatures that didn’t try to outright kill them apart from the tale Dipper told her, and even then he maintained a companionship with the creature. “I-Is he in any pain?”

“I asked around and got him some sedatives that should help bring the edge off. It’s all I can do.” He sighed once, glancing out the window towards the woods on the other side of the road. “He should have some peace and quiet. At least the Manotaurs migrated out of Gravity Falls a few months ago.”

“Migrated?”

It took him a moment to answer Mabel. Dipper’s hand finally rested the mug against the table and he ran his fingers through his hair. The birthmark stood out just as prominently as it always did, a strange sort of off-red color that was just hidden by his hair now.

He breathed in and released the breath before he spoke. “I never kept close tabs on them. I found them in passing. Chutzpah was the only one willing to actually talk to me. Apparently they were getting restless and just said it felt right to move on.”

“Where did they go?”

“I heard some reports a few weeks after that from northern Idaho.” His hair fell back against his forehead but he kept staring out the window. “After that, I don’t know. Even-” Dipper cut himself off, shaking his head. "I don't know where they went." He fell silent, but Dipper didn’t look back at Mabel.

“Something happened?”

He glanced at her and shook his head, not a no, something else. “The gnome population has been in steady decline. There’s only about fifty of them remaining.” Mabel waited with her hands now resting on the table and resisted digging them into the wood as Dipper went on. “There’s been no reports on the Gobblewonker or the Island Head in the lake. There’s only a handful of Gremloblins living in all of Gravity Falls now.” Dipper rested his head in the palm of his hand, sparing his sister a glance and listed off the last place with a snort. “The mini golf place closed a week ago. I have no clue what happened to the Lilliputtians.”

Mabel let out the breath she had been holding and it felt like her lungs had been crushed. “Holy Moses.” Dipper didn’t reply, but he looked at the table. There were a few scratch marks in the thin gloss of the wood from Mabel’s nails. “Why?”

Her brother shrugged and took up the mug again even though there was only a thin layer of coffee and some grinds in the bottom of the cup. “Not sure, but the supernatural seem to be dying breed in this town.”

“Why?”

Dipper glanced up at her, then at the table, and up again. Like he was grabbing for answers and looking for them in things he could see. By the time he opened his mouth Margret had come back with some cleaning supplies and a notepad. “Dear, you’ve barely touched your pie.” Both the twins tried to paste on a smile, but they weren’t fast enough. “Are you two alright?”

“We’re fine Margret. Don’t worry about the stains, really. We could use some more time before ordering anything.” There was a slight emphasis placed on Dipper’s last words, nothing too harsh, but enough for the woman to nod and leave them alone with their thoughts. Though at the mention of her food Mabel’s stomach gave a roar of hunger and she dug into the pie as Dipper continued. “Sorry.”

Mabel tried to speak around her food, then washed it down with her coffee that had gone lukewarm. She flinched at the bitter taste and added a few packets of sugar. “So, why do you think creatures are disappearing like this? Does it have anything to do with Lee?”

That was the first time their friend had come up in this conversation, and the impact of his name is almost like a slap to the face. Dipper seems to jolt for a moment, staring at Mabel. He blinked a few times, his mouth set into a firm line and shook his head. “No. No. Nothing to do with him.” Those first few words are filled with breath before Dipper finds his voice again. “It’s like they’ve been trickling out over the past few years.”

“But why?”

“I’m not sure. But I think it might just be the cycle of things.”

There’s already a sinking feeling in Mabel’s stomach. Cycle was not a good word in the case of Gravity Falls. “How?”

“I’m sure you noticed the businesses in Gravity Falls. Even here,” Dipper motioned to the diner and Mabel could see it. Spots where boards were nailed in place, a few less chairs, harsher stains. Even the mugs were more of an off-color and had a few too many chips on some sides. She could see a growing split in the handle of her mug. “Everything’s starting to fade away. Small towns don’t have a long lifespan, and that might go for the creatures here too.”

Mabel didn’t want to admit he was right. She wanted to ignore the business signs, how quiet the town seemed. There were still people living here and even then she was unsettled by the fact she had only seen a few people in her mad dash to the restaurant. “What are you going to do? I mean, there’s still creatures. And the Shack.”

“I’m not sure.” Those weren’t the words she wanted to hear. Dipper always had some kind of plan. He had cleaned up the Shack with the money Stan left them with. Their grandfather even stuck around to help with renovations while Soos was away planning his marriage with Melody. The Shack became more of an information center with tours of the town. All of that was wasting away now.

“I’m not sure if I’m really that hungry.”

Dipper gave a nod of understanding and placed a few bills on the counter. They left the building with the bell ringing in their wake. Mabel climbed into her car and waited for Dipper to take the lead back home. Dipper had let Stanley take the old car. Plenty of fonder memories were attached to that car for their grandfather. And it did belong to him in the first place.

A few streetlights caught the dark blue sheen of Dipper’s jeep. The music had been turned down for the sake of Mabel being able to hear her own thoughts. No one was out at night. No people, only a dead opossum on the side of the road that both their cars swerved around. She strained to listen for any creatures and rolled down her window to let in some of the cool late-summer air. There was no distant roar of a Gremloblin or the gnomes rampaging together through the forest. All she could hear were the last frog croaks of the summer and a woodpecker searching for bugs hidden in the trees.

The drive to the Shack wasn’t long but it felt like time slowed as she took in the old house. The wood sign was still up there, though the letter S was put back up on the sign and nailed well in place. Everything looked the same, just a little spruced up, the potholes were gone in the parking lot and even the deck didn’t look like a splinter hazard as she climbed out of her car and pulled a few suitcases from the trunk. The one difference that made her pause was that a few windows had been replaced. Specifically, the one that had the triangular glass in it.

“Has he been around?” Dipper glanced over at his sister. Mabel’s body had gone unmoving in their walk to the Shack. The slight fear in her was overpowered by her readiness to fight. He laughed and it startled her for a moment, but Dipper was shaking his head

“Nah, haven’t heard from him in a few years. I still made sure to get rid of anything that had his image on it, just to be safe. You would believe how many things in the Shack had triangles with eyes on them.” Mabel could already see the difference with the small Mystery Shack sign over the door had removed the eye symbol from it.

The old rug was gone, the jar of eyeballs. There was still some of the old merchandise that Stan kept lying around. There were still snow globes and bumper stickers, but most of it was maps and small books on the history of Gravity Falls. What could be told of it to the masses at least. “The break room was already cleared out, and I pulled one of the beds in there so make yourself at home.”

“I thought the Mystery Shack doesn’t get that many customers?” She fiddled with one of the UFO key chains hanging on a nearby rack, pressing a few more at the same time as the illuminated the Shack with their multicolored light. Until Dipper flipped the light switch, that is.

“Most of this is leftover stock from the summer. It helps to have some extra merchandise around, just in case.”

Mabel scoffed at her brother and dragged her luggage behind her. “Jeez, maybe you are getting a little too much like Grunkle Stan.”

He laughed at that, glancing at the picture frame that was placed on the old dinosaur skull table. A photo of them from the Mystery Shack re-opening party with Stan. “No one can manage that.”

She smiled and couldn’t help but feel her heart pulled in several directions. There was a need in Mabel to see what’s changed since her last time at the Shack. Maybe climb down the old steps and look at the destroyed portal that had been left in it’s mangled state? There could be new instruments and equipment in the room she could use. Mabel shook her head. Those were ghosts that shouldn’t be disturbed.

The break room had been left in its old state. Still the room where Ford had taken up residence after that summer. She could see some old books opened and laying around. New ones that Dipper had added to the collection.

“Let me know if you need anything. There’s food in the fridge too if you need a snack.” Dipper stood off to the side, letting Mabel look at the space.

She couldn’t help but laugh. “Looks like I got the room in the end, huh?”

At first Dipper raised an eyebrow, then memory kicked in and both of them were nearly doubled over in laughter. He struggled to give her the key. “I guess you did. Night Mabel.”

The door clicked shut behind him and as his footsteps faded out, Mabel felt like the space was just as lonely as it ever was. She shook off the feeling. Her brother was in the same house and it felt almost like being home again. Almost.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh wow, okay, first time addressing everyone. Okay, just so you all know this story is going to be very, very long and go into a few dark places. I'll update tags to the entire story as it goes along so you'll know if something changes right away.
> 
> Also, I'd like to ask if you'd like to see anything stylistic-ly? I'm kind of using this fanfic as grounds to prepare myself for my senior project next semester. So if you have any suggestions or critiques please tell me, I love me some feedback.
> 
> Talk to you all later!


	6. What Can Dead Men Tell?

The events of how she ended back at the place where Lee’s body was found was hazy. In fact Mabel couldn’t remember how she got back to the forest. No one had driven her and there was no one patrolling the edges of the police tape. Not even the birds sang. There was silence without the relief of white noise.

She stared at the tree. It was much taller than she remembered, bark jagged and rust colored, an almost red tone to the tree.

All it took was a blink of the eye and she could see the body hanging in the tree still covered by a sheet. Mabel couldn’t move. She was utterly paralyzed as blood began to seep into the sheet, sliding beneath the layer and absorbed into the fabric in a bright red stain until the only part of the sheet that remained white was the head.

Mabel opened her mouth trying to call for help, but there was no sound. The only sound that came was a gust of wind and their needles shimmering cool colors in the wind. In its wake behind her she could hear another sound, a dull thudding sound and the rasp of fabric brushing against itself.

Her body only worked long enough for her to turn around before everything turned into flash-frozen dread and sunk into her feet.

More bodies were strung up in trees with sheets over them, hundreds all waving in the breeze, brushing against each other and covered in blood. She could see the liquid sliding down the bark of redwoods, reaching slowly towards her feet like hot magma. There was so much blood.

 

* * *

 

Mabel woke, bolting upright in bed throwing the sheets away from her face with a gasp of air. It felt like she was being suffocated. For a moment she remained sitting up in her bed, taking in the room and tried to calm her racing pulse and the cold sweat along her brow.

The iron tang of blood was no longer palatable on her tongue, there was a pleasant lack of red, and more importantly, a lack of bodies hanging from trees.

No, she was in the old break room. Great Uncle Stanford’s old room. She was safe, no one else had died.

As the dream faded away Mabel became aware of the smell of pancakes and coffee in the air. Her stomach gave a snarl and Mabel instantly regretted not actually having dinner the previous night. She readjusted her pajama pants and shirt before walking out the door.

Mabel stumbled through the halls and bare wood beneath her feet turned each step numb as she walked to the kitchen. Dipper was standing over the sink already cleaning off the hot skillet with a pile of pancakes sitting on the table. He took in her appearance and blinked a few times. “Yikes.” He scrambled for a mug and poured out some coffee while his sister sat at the table.

The mug was set in front of her first along with a plate and syrup. Her coffee was already a pale brown with a strong sweetness wafting from the hot liquid. Neither of them spoke until Dipper settled at the table and began to doll out a few pancakes onto his plate.

“You sure that he can’t see anything here anymore?”

One of the pancakes slipped from his fork and half of it landed on the plate. Dipper went pale and leaned over, like they hiding secrets away from a prying eye. In a lot of ways they were. “Did you see him?”

She shook her head. “No, just, I had a really bad dream. A nightmare. It was just intense. I haven’t had a dream like that in a long time.”

Dipper’s exhale was audible. His body relaxed against the chair and he pushed the pancakes onto his plate before reaching for the syrup. “For a minute I thought you talked to him. Bad dreams happen, especially if it’s something stressful and traumatic. You’re unlucky enough to have both ends of that.”

“I guess.” She drank her coffee deeply to remove the iron scent of blood still lingering in her nose.

“Oh, Keith called earlier,” She almost choked on her coffee and began to stand, but Dipper put up a yielding hand. “Mabel, relax. He said you don’t have to come in until noon if you’d like, but he wants you down at the medical clinic and said something about someone wanting to see you.” That didn’t stop her though. Mabel was still carrying the mug as Dipper called after her. “Mabel! What’s going on?”

“I’ll tell you after work!” She yelled before slamming the door and scrambling for her clothes. One glance out the window and she could already see an overcast of clouds. She decided on one of her nicer button ups along with a vest and made sure to slip her Federal I.D into one of the pockets. She downed what she could of her coffee and snatched up her briefcase and a slice of bread on her way out and giving Dipper a quick hug on her way out the door. “Later Dipper!”

“Mabel!” The door of the gift shop muffled his voice as Mabel sprinted out the door. Already she could feel a few drops of cold rain landing on her head but she got into her car and sped off for the clinic.

She was buzzing and she wasn’t sure what part of her day was causing it. Wendy was going to be there, but maybe finally she could sink her teeth into this case without just grabbing for answers. Though it could have been the fact she wolfed down her syrup drenched pancakes at the table and gulped a whole mug of sugar-laced coffee in under a minute.

When she started hearing her heartbeat rattling her ears a minute later Mabel knew most of her adrenaline was coming from the caffeine.

The town seemed to be more active than when she drove to the diner the other night. Several people carried bags from the local markets or milled about. There was still tension about them, she watched one woman while waiting for a red light that passed by one of the small alleys between the buildings and she kept looking over her shoulder. It was a sobering feeling to see paranoia ingrained into the townsfolk, but at least they were outside and not cowering in their homes.

The building of the Gravity Falls medical clinic wasn’t the most impressive thing. It was no hospital, but at least the outside had some charm to it with a sky blue paint that was just beginning to show it’s age.

Inside the lobby was practically empty. A few upholstered chairs were unoccupied and the man at the front desk looked up from a newspaper he tried to hide a little too late. Mabel walked forward and leaned towards the counter. “I’m looking for a Keith Corduroy.”

The name made the man blink at her a few times before he motioned towards the door. “Down the hall and third door to the right. Room six.”

“Thank you.” Passing through the door, the halls were just as empty. Mabel couldn’t help but wonder how many doctors were on staff when she hadn’t seen a single one.

She sucked in a breath outside the closed door. On the other side she could hear voices, both a man and woman’s, and both familiar.

“You sure about this? I mean, it’s Lee. How can you be okay about something like this?” She knew Keith’s voice in an instant but his voice was strained with some distress that was just barely reigned in.

The second voice was one Mabel hadn’t heard in years. “Who says I’m okay about it? But if anyone’s going to analyze his body it’s going to be me. I didn’t have to take the offer, but I did. Deal with it.” She gave a quick knock to the door and instantly all conversation came to a screeching halt.

She tried to keep control of the grin on her face when a woman opened the door, face freckled and once long hair pulled into a messy bun. The smile on her face was wide at Mabel and she held out a hand. “Hey Mabes.”

Mabel couldn’t resist the low five as she walked into the room. Keith shared the smile without the same humor. “You didn’t have to come in until later.”

“I wanted to get to work as soon as possible, plus,” she gave Wendy a pointed look with a small smirk playing on her lips. “How many years has it been since I’ve seen you?”

“Hey man, not my fault that crime doesn’t stop for the holidays. I’m pretty sure it’s the same for you.” Mabel gave a small sympathetic nod.

“I’m sorry about Lee.”

Wendy’s eyes cast down, just slightly. “It’s weird. I was talking with him a few days ago on the phone, and now I have to do an autopsy report on him.”

“What about?”

Wendy didn’t miss how the other woman’s body changed, standing straighter than before and her breath just audible above the air circulating through the vents. “He was gushing about Nate’s exhibit at an art expo on body art. It’s just,” She went quiet, startlingly so in mid-sentence. Something flashed in her eyes and Mabel just gave a sympathetic nod in turn. “Nate will be there Sunday. So will Thompson, Robbie, and Tambry.”

“Most of the town will be there.” Keith placed a hand on his sister’s arm. He averted looking Mabel in the eye. There was something Mabel didn’t know yet that they did, but now was not the time.

Whatever passed between them was over and done when she shrugged off her brother’s hand and moved for the door. “Come on. The morgue is set up in the basement.” Keith gave Mabel one look. A warning. This was unsteady ground being tread. Mabel blinked just once and followed Wendy down the hall and the stairs tucked away in one corner of the building like they were trying to be forgotten.

The temperature drop made goose bumps rise along Mabel’s arms even through her shirt. The other doors were closed and she couldn’t help but wonder if they were really unoccupied or if someone else was doing work.

She was somewhat surprised to see another woman walking out of the room Wendy led them to. Her hair had a similar warm tone to Wendy and Keith’s, though the color was not as prominent and showed age with streaks of white and deep-set laugh lines in her face. “The body is prepped. Do you need any assistance?”

Wendy gave a soft exhale and offered a tentative smile. “Go home Mrs. Valentino.” The name made Mabel’s spine go taught and she stared at the woman harder. Gone was the smile and pleasantries when she first met her and Mr. Valentino. There were dark rings under her eyes. She looked exhausted. Wendy continued and gave the woman a pat on the shoulder. “We can take it from here.”

Mrs. Valentino spared Mabel and Keith a passing glance. Her face was warped; holding something back and saying nothing as she walked pass them towards the stairs. The agent looked to Wendy for answers, but she was already pulling on a set of scrubs, facemask, and two sets of gloves. Mabel and Keith followed her example without words and moved into the room.

Lee’s body was already laid out on the table, still wearing the clothes the day from his murder.

She felt frozen. Mabel had never felt this way before when seeing a dead body. This was Lee’s body. His hair still as long as he used to keep it, but tied back into a low ponytail and his eyes left open in an empty expression. Few things had changed about him and she couldn’t help but remember what he sounded like. His laughter, the friendly punches exchanged with Nate. Everything smelled like chemicals and sanitizer. This wasn’t her first murder case, but they had been so far and in between. It was wrong, but here she was.

Wendy stood there for a moment, eyes glazed when she finally stepped forward and glanced at the tag on the plastic the body had been wrapped in. She gave a short nod and motioned towards her brother. “Take the clipboard and note what I say.”

The procedure went on and Mabel felt helpless there. She watched in horrified fascination as Wendy went through the autopsy without any fanfare. There were no breakdowns or pauses in the middle. She swabbed his nails, collected dirt from his sneakers, removed and noted clothing, and examined the body in its entirety.

It. When did Mabel start thinking of Lee’s body as “it” instead of “he?”

Wendy called out each observation and Keith wrote everything down without pause. The pen was pressed hard enough into the paper to leave indents in the parchment.

When Wendy did pause it was when she examined Lee’s face. She went still and stopped calling out notes. Mabel moved closer and could see Wendy gently moving his eyelids, staring hard at his eyes. Not some pause of recognition, they got that out of the way beforehand. “Cotton swabs.”

The agent jumped and she fumbled for the implements before handing one to Wendy’s outstretched hand.

Carefully, Wendy traced the area around Lee’s mouth with the end and placed it in a plastic bag. She leaned back for a moment and her back cracked a few times, ringing out like a gunshot in the room. “Possible cause of death strangulation.”

Keith paused in writing and blinked at his sister with some doubt. “What about the cut in his neck? He was found already hung.”

She shook her head, pointing to his eyes. “Sclera has red spots from burst blood vessels caused by asphyxiation.” Wendy turned back to Lee’s body. Mabel couldn’t help but notice how tense her body had gotten. Her fingers fidgeted, trying to hold herself back from pacing across the ground. The pathologist leaned down and looked at Lee’s neck, the bruising caused by the rope.

Her hand motioned for Keith and Mabel to come and look as her other hand pointed along the bruising from the rope. “Here,” her index finger moved along the line before pointing out one spot where the bruises seemed larger, more jagged before the wound in his throat. “Strangulation with hands.” She reached for another swab, carefully wiping down the location and putting it in a bag.

“So the slit throat was just a distraction?” The words came out of Keith’s mouth with air, breathless and somewhat enraged.

“I’m not sure.” Wendy ushered them a few feet away from the body and her hand found the handle of a dissecting knife on the table as she cut into the flesh and took a sample of his neck at the base of the cut. She stared at it for a moment before turning her attention to the large incision on his neck.

Mabel could taste acid in the back of her throat as Wendy’s hand prodded at the flesh, feeling the texture of the wound. She couldn’t see her mouth, but Wendy’s eyebrows came together and her fingers froze mid-movement over the wound. “High possibility of being cut multiple times in the neck. Inflicted wound too large for a knife.”

“Do you know what it could have been?” It took Mabel a moment to swallow down the lump crawling up her throat to ask the question.

There was a brief silence. Wendy seemed to look at the cut closer and continued to examine the cut, digging a little deeper into his throat like she was looking for something, or maybe looking at something familiar. “This is just my guess, but I’d say an axe.”

“An axe?”

Keith stiffened and looked at his sister with wide eyes. “You don’t-“

“A hand axe.” Her voice was stronger and she gave a hard look at her brother. “Anything larger would have severed the neck completely.”

“How are you sure it couldn’t be another axe?” When Mabel asked Keith gave a shocked look, the pen almost falling out of his hand. Mabel didn’t look at him and kept her focus on the other woman, observing the slight rise and fall of her shoulders. Wendy pointed towards the uncut portion of Lee’s neck, not quite touching the skin but dragging a line through the air just over the flesh.

“A normal axe would have had a longer stroke, even if it was carefully controlled. But the flesh is jagged, someone ran it through the neck several times. There’s no way to avoid it and get a cut just deep enough to look like that without cutting off enough to keep his head on.” It was subtle, but the agent caught the slight glance Wendy gave her. Harsh, waiting for judgment or for Mabel to speak up. The hint was clear and Mabel cleared her throat.

“Any hints to who it could have been?” Maybe it was the wrong thing for her to ask, and the pathologist flashed one more look before motioning to the growing collection of plastic bags. All labeled with what they are and the time logged when Wendy took the sample.

“It’ll take a few days to examine everything. I brought some equipment with me to help identify everything.” Her eyes lingered on the bags, mountains upon mountains of plastic laid out before her. Mabel was sure that Wendy took more than she needed. Or maybe Wendy needed them. Needed to have something left of her friend. She could see it in how the woman’s fingernails bit into the palm of her hands. The sensation would only be dulled by the walls of plastic around them, but the sentiment would not. “There’s a chance that if he fought back during strangulation there could be skin samples of the killer.”

“You think Lee got the chance?”

Wendy huffed. “Lee never let anyone get the last laugh.” None of them actually laughed. It was the small bit of respect they could give Lee.

There wasn’t much more that Mabel could do. She and Keith stuck around for a little longer to help in what ways they could though Mabel couldn’t stay in the same room when Wendy started taking organ samples. There was little smell to the body. No rot or decay since it had been preserved, but it was shaking to see organs pulled from a body, even carefully, when the average extent she had seen were bullets and gashes.

Keith left the room with her, finding a small empty room with a few chairs and an empty autopsy table. “What the Hell was that?” She looked up at the deputy. To no surprise he was enraged. The unspoken conversations between them finally coming to a head. “I hope you weren’t hinting what I think you were in there.”

“Who else in town handles an axe with expertise?”

“You mean practically everyone?” He spoke through gritted teeth. “You said my dad wasn’t a suspect.”

“A percentage of a percentage is still a chance.” Mabel spoke evenly as she stared at him without much expression. If anything that wound Keith up more. “And in case you’re wondering, no, I don’t think your dad is the culprit.”

“Then what the Hell exactly was that, Agent Pines?”

Before she went on Mabel stood and motioned for Keith to follow her. They walked and said nothing as they peaked into the room.

Wendy stood over Lee’s body, motionless. There was no sound, no noise other than the hum of the ventilation. Even though her shoulders were still, Wendy’s hands shook.

There was no exchange, but Keith’s body relaxed. Stunned into his silence as Mabel guided him with one hand away and back into the hall.

Mabel knew that Keith understood why she said what she did. There was a point of control they had to maintain for the sake of the town and their own sanity. It was already difficult being so close to the case. The man’s eyes were still harsh, even as they removed the scrubs and threw everything into hazardous waste before climbing up the stairs again. Maybe she did push it a little too hard. That exchange didn’t settle right in her stomach. Then again she could chalk it up to the smell of disinfectant and preserved tissue.

It was late afternoon by the time they went their separate ways and Mabel finally got into her car to head back to the Shack. The sun was still high in the sky and she was already drained.

For a few minutes she let her head rest against the steering wheel of her car and closed her eyes. The thin sheen of sweat that clung to her brow made her skin stick to the plastic. In and out, in and out, she breathed to the steady rhythm of music over the radio until it cut to a commercial.

She pulled out her phone and dialed a number. In and out, her breath came a little faster as the phone rang a few times longer than it should have. Internally she begged for them to pick up. Something, anything to pull her away for a moment. It was a moment of weakness in the privacy of her car, just like Wendy had when she thought no one was looking.

A deep gruff voice spoke with some surprise in his tone. “Mabel?”

She couldn’t help but let a laugh escape her, a small moment of hysteria before she spoke in a wavering voice. “Hey Great Uncle Ford, how’s New Mexico treating you?”


	7. Can't We Talk About Him?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for disappearing into a portal for several months. I was waiting out the last few episodes to see what the Author was like and then I got involved in a lot of work stuff sooooo...
> 
> Anyways, I've also gone back and fixed a few things in regards to the Stans. From this point onward if anything happens in the series that seriously changes stuff I'm just going to shove my fingers in my ears and start singing Discogirl.
> 
> Enjoy!

The sun hadn’t even gone down by the time Mabel stumbled through the front door. Her shoes fell off each foot halfway down the hall towards the kitchen. All she could give her brother was a slow blink before she reached for the fridge and she squinted against the blaring light.

Dipper stared at her, the pen held in his mouth ticking a few times up and down in thought as he set aside a paper with red notations scratched with his handwriting on the sides. Neither of them spoke as Mabel fished through the fridge. “Bottom shelf.” Dipper spoke up around the metal and plastic and waited until she made a noise in the back of her throat and found a fresh bottle of hard cider. The sound was repeated when she found the bottle opener. Dipper pulled the pen from his teeth and held it between his fingers as his sister drank from the bottle. “Rough day?”

She was patient enough to wait until the liquid went down her throat, accompanied by the sweet taste of cider and slight burn of alcohol. When she did finally look at her brother it was with a smirk. “Wendy says hi.”

Just like that, the pen fell from Dipper’s hand along with the paper’s he had been holding. He blinked at her, mouth falling open slightly as she laughed and took another sip. “Wendy?”

“Who did you think was going to do the autopsy? Scully?” The legs of the chair dragged against the hardwood floor, adding more scratches to the large collection as Mabel pulled it out from the table and sat down. Her brother was still gaping at her, not even moving to pick up the papers.

“I just didn’t think,” Dipper rubbed the side of his face. She watched as Dipper’s brow furrowed then refocused on her. “Didn’t they know she had a personal history?”

“And I don’t?” There was a small tone of offensive in her voice and the neck of the bottle was pointed towards him. “Apparently Wendy had a choice and she chose to work on the case.”

“It’s just-“

“Yeah, it’s rough on everyone.” Mabel took another sip of the hard cider, but her expression shifted into something else. Something a little devious and scheming that made the hairs on the back of Dipper’s neck stand on end. “But you must be really happy she’s back in town, right?”

Her brother spluttered and nearly dived after the papers and pen that had scattered to the floor moments ago. A low blow, but Mabel couldn’t help but laugh a bit at the red coloring to his face. “No, no, that’s not what- I mean,” Dipper cleared his throat and placed the papers on the desk. The pen was still missing from the table. “I’m not into her anymore.”

Mabel raised an eyebrow. A smirk still sat on her face as she hummed and took a sip. There was no subtleness to the act either.

Dipper frowned a little too hard. When Mabel wanted to be read it was a statement larger than a firework display and her brother was no stranger to that. But Dipper rubbed his face, maybe trying to remove the red hue that dashed into his face but there was a layer of fatigue to the motion that made her pay closer attention and the smirk fell away into an open mask. “I don’t know. I mean, all of that was when we were kids, and even then I got the picture. I’m honestly not into her anymore.”

Mabel blinked slowly at her brother as she thought it over, again and again. Wendy’s name rarely came up in conversation apart from shared memories and the woman was practically nonexistent apart from a quick message and Facebook reminders for her birthday. Mabel drank until there was only a thin layer of liquid at the bottom, took a breath, and spoke. “Ford also says hi.”

The name made Dipper’s shoulders jump the moment his name left Mabel’s lips. Her brother’s face warped into a scowl with anger and fire in his eyes that would have scared Mabel. It would have if she hadn’t seen the reaction every time the name of their great-uncle reached his ears. “You called him?”

“He’s our grunkle-”

“Don’t-“ Dipper cut her off with a strained sound. The sclera of his eyes flashed as brilliantly as the teeth clenched by his jaw. “He’s not our grunkle.” He breathed hard through his nose and every word was strangled by the wrath in his throat. “Do you remember anything he did? Do you?”

“You should have sent a text about Lee, or something.”

“And he should have bothered to show up to Stan’s funeral.” Years later it was still a sore subject but it had the bite to make her flinch and a small part of her brain to itch. It was a subject Mabel tried to push into the depths of her mind even as a spark of animosity was kindled somewhere in her chest and she tried to smother it.

Stanford was still living under the same roof with his brother after that summer, vowing every day he would shut down the Mystery Shack and every day never making good on that promise. One day he was there and the next he was already halfway across the United States and left the house and everything held within behind. He hadn’t said a word, not even a phone call to explain why. Ford never came back, even after Stan passed away in his sleep a few years later. “If he cares at all about the place he turned into a science experiment, he’d actually read the news.” Dipper’s voice had powerful venom in it. He left the table, working his way through the cupboards a little too loudly, almost sending a dish flying towards the ground. “What do you want for dinner?”

“Dipper-”

“Spaghetti sound good?” His voice was still strained, still ragged and on the edge of warping into a hiss. Mabel nodded but he didn’t bother to see if she had. There was no fixing what their great uncle had done. Even Mabel had a small coil of anger somewhere inside of her, but she was willing to still let him come home if he ever felt the need to salvage the bit of family Ford had left. At least Mabel couldn’t say that she didn’t try.

Her brother made dinner in relative silence, the sauce gently simmering with heat trapped underneath the red paste. Every once in a while it popped and splattered Dipper’s arms, breaking the silence between them with a sudden curse hissed under his breath. She pulled another bottle from the fridge before handing it wordlessly to her brother. It took a few minutes for him to even notice it and he popped the top off the hard cider.

It took a while for Dipper to relax. Even over dinner that tenseness never left him and Mabel kept her eyes on him. It wasn’t often that she’d seen such anger linger in him. It was always something of a simmer. A quiet anger, like burning embers that were willing to consume if something fed them. Betrayal sat hard with both of them. Maybe Dipper even more but it had never been truly visible unless he honestly felt hurt. This was different. He had shaken with rage at the mention of their great uncle. It was years ago. She wanted to say something to keep her brother talking to her, but that chance was buried and gone when she brought that name into the house.

“I’ll take care of the dishes.” It was all he said to her after they ate. No words at the dinner table, but silence and the gentle scratch of forks pressed into cracked plates. She left, grabbing one more bottle and retiring to her room.

Not hers. Mabel’s hand flinched away from the doorknob for a moment. The first time they entered that room had been over something so childish and petty. It was innocent childhood before the world started to truly crash around them. Just like it did for both Stanley and Stanford. When Mabel entered she became even more aware of the weight of the walls.

She paced around the room, taking in the older items. Old photos of people she never met, a small prism coated in dust sitting on a dresser. Her fingers wiped away the layer of dust and she watched light refract within the glass, crystalizing rainbows before her eyes. It was just a trivial decoration, but it existed in the old room when they found it. Mabel couldn’t help but smile at the knick-knack and left it in its place. Nothing had been moved since she’d been at the Shack years ago. Nothing in that room had been moved since Stan died, maybe even since Ford left.

“None of you should talk to me.” Those were the first words Stanford said to her over the phone when she called him. Ford didn’t hang up. He waited.

“Did Dipper tell you that?”

“You did too last time.”

She had winced because she remembered. She cried. She screamed through the phone’s receiver. She wanted nothing more than to erase his existence, to wipe her own memory or to just throw him back through the portal he stumbled out of years ago. It didn’t matter. He abandoned them when no one else from their family showed and it shook her and Dipper to the core.

“Lee Rhianda was murdered.” It came out quick, a sudden outburst as sweat beaded along her temple even in the cool air conditioning of her car.

“What?”

“The local mechanic. He was found dead. Hung in a tree with a gouge in his neck.”

There was a pause but Mabel could hear a small noise in the back of her great uncle’s throat. “You’re-“

“I took the case.”

And then he exhaled, breathing a hard sigh into the receiver. “You called me after you take the case?”

“I just thought I’d say hi.” Lies. She took a long pause and tried not to let the sound of her wavering breath be heard through the phone. “You should come home.”

“I can’t-“

“Dipper will forgive you, he’d just need some time.”

“Mabel-“

“Stanley would have forgiven you.”

There was no sound. A minute of silence passed before there was a click and the line went dead. Mabel had tried not to cry, she had to hold herself together. Breaking down now would help no one. That warmness just returned to her eyes, but she fought it down until the warmth was a distant notion.

A sudden sound brought Mabel back to herself. The music of bright chimes and cat meows made Mabel’s hand reach reflexively for her phone. She rubbed the wetness out of her eyes and stared at the screen. Marissa’s face from one night they had gone out for drink’s stared back at her, face caught in a weird goofy expression that Mabel had promised she deleted from her phone. What her coworker didn’t know won’t socially destroy her, but it made her smile and laugh every time. This time her face only twitched but it couldn’t bring a grin to her face.

“What you got?”

Marissa’s voice disappeared a few times, only stabilizing once Mabel stood by the window. “Alright, so there was frequent communication with someone named Nate Menville. Texts and phone calls. Looks like-“

“Nate is out of town at an art expo and was gone long before Lee Rhiandra’s death. He has an alibi.”

“Mabel-“

“Was there anything else?”

There was a pause on the other side. Too long, Mabel could already feel the itch again, making her tap a nail against the sparkled casing of her phone. “Nothing unusual, text conversations are mostly just talk with friends; a Robbie, Thompson, and-“ Marissa paused for a moment, “Tambers?”

“Pass. What else?”

“Nothing. He worked at the mechanic shop, so any phone calls from there aren’t noteworthy. Some calls to family, but nothing unusual or any meetings for that night. Looks like whoever set this up didn’t do it by phone then.” This isn’t the answer Mabel wanted and she could feel it boiling the anger that was turning her mind into a hazed blur.

“Mabel, you’re not going to solve this thing getting worked up.”

“I’m not worked up.”

“You’re grinding your teeth again.” Mabel relaxed her jaw and felt the ache in her muscles. “Anything else you need?”

“No.”

Marissa paused on the other end of the line for a second too long. “I’ll tell you if I find anything else.”

The goodbye was left sitting on Mabel’s tongue when Marissa hung up the phone, three beeps in she did the same and pressed the end button. The tension built up in Mabel’s jaw again, clenching and unclenching until she settled it with another sip of hard cider from the bottle.

Every turn led to a dead end and Mabel was not appreciating it. The line of suspects was as slim as ever and even the only one she could suspect already had a criminal record. She’d rather climb the barbed and electric fence of that dead end than have to talk to Gideon ever again. The worst part was that she knew it was going to happen eventually, she would probably be the only one that could get him to confess if he did it. Not before building himself up and cohering her into a date. Like she was a stranger to that song and dance.

Still, she had Wendy looking for clues. Keith was on high alert and even the other officers would start picking up the slack. But even with a strong team her stomach turned with apprehension. They didn’t have an identification of the murderer, which meant they were still out there. She didn’t know how long it would take for them to pick another townsfolk to pick off. Or maybe they would stop? Or maybe they would kill one of the few tourists visiting the town? Maybe even an officer patrolling alone? Maybe a child wandering the woods, looking for adventure and mystery? The thought made her head spin along with the slight haze of the alcohol and she set the bottle aside and collapsed back on the couch.

They hung the body on purpose in the forest. The graveyard possibly a location of importance. Manly Dan was a witness. Lee strangled to death then cut with an axe. No suspects yet. These facts were repeated in Mabel’s head, over and over again as her eyes closed.

She stood up from the couch on uneven feet as the entire Shack was shaken to its core. A picture frame fell from its place on the wall. The small crystal pyramid fell to the floor, shattering into a thousand pieces and in each shard she could see something different. A beach she never visited. A thousand different towns with a man running away. A small house in the midst of a Northwest winter. She could see everything move in slow motion, and she stood in each place as old memories sped by without looking at her. One of them glowed, a powerful light and a figure’s shadow being swallowed alive. Two voices yelling above a distant roar.

“You ruined my life!”

“You ruined your own life!”

There was screaming and the hiss of hot metal.

* * *

 

When Mabel woke up the sun had yet to come over the horizon. Her mouth felt dry and someone was sitting on the other end of the couch with a cup of water. Dipper handed her the glass and smiled as she downed the liquid. “Did you forget that too much hard cider hurts your stomach?”

She gasped and came up for air from the cup. There was residue in her eyes that made Dipper a little blurry and she rubbed it away. Even then he looked like a worn eraser had smudged him. “It was a couple bottles. Mabel Pines has the liver of a unicorn.”

“I would hope not, I don’t need you throwing up more glitter than you usually do.” He stood from the couch and even his legs seemed unsteady.

“Did you sleep at all?” The look he gave her was enough of an answer. “Have you tried taking anything?” Nothing changed in his face. “Guess we’re both going to have a rough day.”

“Got called into the screaming pits of public education, so yeah.” Mabel snorted. “One of the teachers got a bad bug that’s been going around. Got the call this morning.”

“You mean while you were awake.”

Her brother rolled his eyes, his face still set with the look with a twitch of annoyance at the corner of his mouth. “I got a few hours.” There was a pause between them as Mabel tried to believe him. She didn’t. “What about you?”

The air that had gathered in her lungs after her nightmare left it in a long-winded sigh. “Back to the morgue. We got two days before the funeral. Wendy’s going to need an extra set of arms and an extra opinion. I might get started on my own field investigations if there’s extra time.”

There was apprehension in Dipper’s posture; the way he tensed his muscles and hesitated in the doorway, his index finger tapping ever so slightly against the palm of his hand. “Are you sure-?”

Her response came on reflex. Words she’s repeated a few times over before until they became an automated response. “This isn’t open to the public.” Mabel could have flinched at her own voice. It was too cold. This was her brother; still a civilian, but the person she confided in when she needed. A twinge of shame struck through her. “Sorry Dip.”

A laugh was not the response she was expecting. “Oh geez, Mabes, you’re apologizing? Seriously?”

“We should be out there solving this together. Just like old times.”

Dipper went quiet for a beat and she finally had the heart to look back up at him. His eyes were unfocused and staring at the ground. “I know, but we both know there’s too much red tape on this.” He scratched at the layer of stubble on his face, all layered on a little too thick without time to shave in the morning. Mabel could just barely catch the distant smell of freshly brewed coffee just wafting through the vents of the Shack. “Let’s go out Saturday night. You, Wendy, Keith, anyone else we can grab.”

“What?” Her eyes began to clear just as she caught the smile just starting to appear on Dipper’s face. It lacked humor and hit a note of melancholy but Mabel could feel the sentiment.

“Lee wouldn’t want us to be moping about his death. Live and enjoy the present, right?”

Mabel nodded slowly. She couldn’t help from copying the same smile from her brother’s face, pulled just a little too tight and with an edge of bitterness that Mabel was well acquainted with. “I guess you’re right. I’ll see if I can talk everyone into it.”

Neither of them moved for a moment, staring at each other in their exhausted and dazed emotional states. Dipper was the one to move first, turning and shutting the bedroom door behind him with a soft click.

She finally breathed out. Not a soft sigh but a heaving gasp and inhale that lacked any sound against the heat built up behind her eyes that contrasted with the chill of the floorboards beneath her feet. A few steps across the floor and she heard her phone ringing somewhere behind her on the couch.

Her bleary eyes only caught the time for a moment before she mumbled, fingers paused over the green light flashing on her phone. “Six-eighteen in the morning. Six-eighteen.”

One hand went up to her hair and began pulling at the knots as she brought the cell up to her ear. “Mabel Pines speaking.”

“Mabel, this is Adi from the Gravity Falls Police Department.”

One finger caught a tangle in her hair and the strands ran against the skin just under her nail. “Adi?” Mabel’s stomach dropped and her hand finally pulled through her hair. “What-“

“Keith is at the graveyard, he needs you to meet him down there as soon as possible.” The woman on the other side paused. Her voice sounded muffled, like she was speaking through something. Mabel ran out that morning past Dipper without a cup of coffee, the tires spit gravel and pulled out of the Shack’s parking lot before the morning light could even reach the top of the cliffs.


End file.
